We should hire a staffing company to provide these paralegal services he talks about, on a part time basis and cut the exorbitant salaries and benefits. We should let them leave if they do not like their current jobs and salaries and bring in new Tier V employees that have fresh paralegal college degrees at significantly reduced cost. We’ll have 50 to 500 qualified and eager applicants to choose from for each job.

Why wasn’t an independent committee formed to look at this situation instead of someone with obvious inherent bias? Let’s ask the warden to report on what he needs at the jail. Cons aren’t going to want to web conference when they can go for a ride, duh. Lets just remove their right to appear before a judge and let the judges avatar appear before them on a webcam.

Instead of focusing on dispensing justice at a low unit cost or touting the low costs achieved per case processed, the report repeatedly reinforces that the court is a revenue generator. Is the court operating to dispense justice or as a money making machine,? As Crummy states:

“The annual revenue generated by the Town Court more than pays for the current and proposed operation of the Court and, of course, in addition provides more than $1 million annually to the State of New York and a like amount to the Town’s General Fund.” He also throws in a Judy K quote “
New York State’s 1,277 Town and Village Justice Courts, after all, play a key role in New York State’s system of justice. These courts hear more than two million cases a year, and collect more than $200 million in fees and fines shared by the localities and the State. For many New Yorkers, Justice Courts are the face of the justice system.
For many New Yorkers, Justice Courts are very interested in collecting money from the people who often can afford it the least, and often for things where the arresting officer could have been lenient and not ticketed. I don’t see where the Report evaluates the current cost of justice per case and what these expenditures will lower the cost too. Should we demand measurable increase in efficiency for our investment? Looks more like show me the money pitch

The report proposes “Greening” the court system by reducing the use of paper and buying and running more electronic equipment. Doesn’t he know that the overall life cycle cost of the “all electronic” system is much more costly that the tried-and-true? That’s a well established falsehood. As businesses have “computerized” everything, the unit volume of paper used has climbed significantly.

We do not need to freely participate in “Pilot” programs to test new technology; it is very costly and we should wait until the programs are developed and then implement the ones with a track record. Our job is not to be innovators in the world. Costs lots of taxpayer money to do that. Why is he proposing job reclassifications and raises for happy employees?

The only common sense here is Crummy pays back Mahan and the Dems for hiking his tax-funded salary by handing the Colonie Dems a patronage bonanza in under the guise of common sense. Crummy and Mahan would be laughable except that the last laugh is on the Colonie property taxpayers.

Looks like one man’s narrowly focused ideas. Call for big investment and expense and dont provide a performance measurement for what it can achieve, such as lower cost per case processed. Smells like a “Lets make government bigger” money grab from our taxpayer wallets.

We should hire a staffing company to provide these paralegal services the report talks about, on a part time basis and cut the exorbitant salaries and benefits. We should let them leave if they do not like their current jobs and salaries and bring in new Tier V employees that have fresh paralegal college degrees at significantly reduced cost. We’ll have 50 to 500 qualified and eager applicants to choose from for each job.

Why wasn’t an independent committee formed to look at this situation instead of someone with obvious inherent bias? Let’s ask the warden to report on what he needs at the jail. Cons aren’t going to want to web conference when they can go for a ride, duh. Lets just remove their right to appear before a judge and let the judges avatar appear before them on a webcam.

Instead of focusing on dispensing justice at a low unit cost or touting the low costs achieved per case processed, the report repeatedly reinforces that the court is a revenue generator. Is the court operating to dispense justice or as a money making machine,? As Crummy states:

“The annual revenue generated by the Town Court more than pays for the current and proposed operation of the Court and, of course, in addition provides more than $1 million annually to the State of New York and a like amount to the Town’s General Fund.” He also throws in a Judy K quote “
New York State’s 1,277 Town and Village Justice Courts, after all, play a key role in New York State’s system of justice. These courts hear more than two million cases a year, and collect more than $200 million in fees and fines shared by the localities and the State. For many New Yorkers, Justice Courts are the face of the justice system.
For many New Yorkers, Justice Courts are very interested in collecting money from the people who often can afford it the least, and often for things where the arresting officer could have been lenient and not ticketed. I don’t see where the Report evaluates the current cost of justice per case and what these expenditures will lower the cost too. Should we demand measurable increase in efficiency for our investment? Looks more like show me the money pitch

The report proposes “Greening” the court system by reducing the use of paper and buying and running more electronic equipment. Doesn’t he know that the overall life cycle cost of the “all electronic” system is much more costly that the tried-and-true? That’s a well established falsehood. As businesses have “computerized” everything, the unit volume of paper used has climbed significantly.

We do not need to freely participate in “Pilot” programs to test new technology; it is very costly and we should wait until the programs are developed and then implement the ones with a track record. Our job is not to be innovators in the world. Costs lots of taxpayer money to do that. Why is he proposing job reclassifications and raises for happy employees?

The 53 page report created by Judge Crummey shows in Appendix 4 that the Justice Court now makes about $335,000 per year with revenues of $1,000,000 and expenses of $665,000. This is on a part-time operation. The reform proposal makes the court more of a full time operation and should increase the revenues and earnings further. This is a common sense proposal.